Bordering the Endless Horizon
by yl2000wc
Summary: "The first thing I noticed...Glasses." The entire anime adaption of Kyoukai no Kanata in Akihito Kanbara's point of view.
1. Sunset to Sunrise and Back Again

The first thing I noticed...  
Glasses.

Big, red frames sitting on top of a small, upturned nose, framing large, golden brown eyes. They matched perfectly with her poofy strawberry hair, which waved gently back and forth in the wind.

...what wind?

Second thing I noticed?

She was standing on a 3-story ledge, leaning forward to look down at the asphalt below, rocking front and back on her heels.

_ This is where the progression in stories takes two strongly diverging paths. Down one path, the protagonist actively participates in the story and aids in its progression. Down the other, the protagonist remains passive and allows the story to carry itself..._

My mind blanked for a minute. I knew, as who I was, I was in no position to save her, nor would her life or death have any meaning whatsoever to me. She could jump right here and now, and it wouldn't have mattered a bit...to me anyways. Judging by the dark blue ribbon she wore, signifying a new student at my school, not many people would know her well enough to shed tears over her death.

_ I clearly belong in the second category, but for some odd reason, I chose to follow the first path!_

...What was I thinking? I was no cold-hearted, apathetic no-life! Nearly tripping over myself in my heroic attempt to save her, I dashed up the stairs of the school building, flinging the door to the roof wide open and took a gasp of air.

"I...Excuse me!"

I stumble a bit and catch myself.

"I...glasses! I-I mean, I love your glasses! The wide frames perfectly compliment your eyes, not to mention the bright red goes well with your short hair! A-at any rate, someone who looks as good in glasses as you do simply should not die!"

...Did I say too much? Spoke a little too loudly? She didn't even turn back to look at me. I tense a little, and throw as much strength into my last few words.

_"In short, I love glasses!"_

W-Was that good enough?

She lowers her head a little and mutters:

_ "How unpleasant"_

And jumps.

I gasp and take a step forward, then stop.

She jumps unnaturally high, backflips gracefully over the 14 foot fence and slides to a stop directly in front of me. She's short, the thought strikes me. Her eyes are shadowed, but I could see a sword trembling in her hands.

...A sword?!

"You w-"

*sphhltk*

"Ah-nhhgkk..."

I stop breathing for a moment, literally. I can feel the hard substance going through my body, slightly off from its intended target, which I assume is my heart. Choking, I fall to my knees, gripping the blade in my left hand. The pain starts to settle in then, tainting my vision red. I could hear my heart stumble and pick up again. As my red vision clears, I start to breathe evenly, and even with the crimson blade going straight through my chest, I take a deep breath and wince through the pain.

"I-I was too much for you." She had squatted down to look at me at eye level. She tries to act confident, like she goes around stabbing people all day, but I could feel the blade shaking, the fear and a little...regret? in her eyes. She shifts her weight, preparing to stand up.

"Uh…" I force myself to look up, even though every movement reanimated the pain.

"Huh?" Her eyes grow to be saucers and she looks surprised. Her grip on the sword tightens.

"S-Say...for now, could you do something about...that…?" I let go of the sword and point to it weakly. The blood had started seeping through my school uniform and it would be a bitch to clean later. I force out a smile, right eye twitching with stabbing pain and a little irritation. "...Please?"

She stares at me, wide-eyed. "What...on Earth are you?"

...Says the girl who nearly attempted suicide and instead just stabbed me through the heart. "Th-that's what I should be asking you…" I mutter.

_That is how I met Mirai Kuriyama. If that was the extent of our relationship, it'd probably be impossible for stories to exist in this world of ours._

* * *

I stumble a bit, the stab wound throbbing juuust a "little". Now I had to take the long way home. because if anyone saw me I would be dead meat...actually, just very, very screwed meat. Or at least, I'm pretty sure people don't usually walk around like they were a murder victim. Which technically, I am. Except I'm not actually dead. Whatever. I hear a rustle behind me and I turn around abruptly. "How long do you plan on following me?" I grumble, glaring at a nearby bush.

A few strands of pink hair twitched in surprise, and she stood up, shaking loose leaves out of her hair, glasses slightly crooked. "I-I'm not following you! My home just happens to be this way too!" Her face turns a little red at the notion of being caught.

I look at her disbelievingly. "Nothing's really gonna change, you know. Stab me as many times as you want, I'm not gonna die".

She looks irritated. "Mmmhhh...At least tell me why!" She crosses her arms and her glasses slide down her nose, so she looked at me over the top, pouting slightly. "I've been stabbing you all night!"

Perfectly normal, I understand. Stabbing people is a regular occurrence around here. Except…"You're a Spirit World Warrior, aren't you?" She nods, listening carefully. "And you've decided to kill me, who you've identified as a youmu." She falters a bit, but nods her head slowly. "Sorry, but I can't be killed. You see, I'm only half youmu. The other half is human. So...basically, I'm immortal."

She gives me a blank look. "Huh? So...I can stab you all I want?" She cocks her head slightly.

"Yes. Err...no. I may be unable to die, but it still hurts like hell! And besides, why are you specifically targeting me?!" My chest pounded at the memory.

Her facial expression dramatically changes, and she doesn't meet me in the eye. "I...you?" She looks up to the sky. "I...guess..." Her voice drifted off.

She lost me. "Uh...Sorry, what was that?"

She jumps back to reality. "Oh! Ah...N-nothing. I-I guess I'll see you tomorrow…" She flashes a smile and quickly turns to walk away.

"Oh! Wait I…" I take a step towards her.

"Yes?" She turns slightly, but I can't see her expression.

"I...I never got your name…"

"...Kuriyama. Kuriyama Mirai" She glances at me. "And...you?"

"Kanbara Akihito. Nice to meet you." I smile at her.

"I...yeah….." She turns and flounders away.

I stare at her back dumbly. I wasn't all too sure what happened, but the air suddenly felt a bit colder. I shivered a little and thought of being caught out here is a storm rushed in. Might as well get home.

* * *

AN: Hey there! So, thank you so much for reading my fanfiction! As of now, I will be posting whenever I see fit, and the chapter will range in length, depending on how long each scene in the anime is. I may possibly add extra scenes when possible. Sorry to all those fans out there who read the Light Novel, I haven't gotten to it yet, but maybe I'll do one of these for it when I do! ALSO. PLEASE do not read this fanfiction if you have not seen the anime yet or have not finished it, this may contain spoilers. Yes, I do realize I am batshit craaazy for covering the entire anime, but I love this anime, and I've already watched it..._"one..two...six?" _times, so a few more times wouldn't hurt.

Another thing to add, almost everything written in italic means it was taken directly from the anime. Of course, I won't be highlighting every time Mirai says "How unpleasant", but do remember that I am directly taking the anime and switching the point of view, so many things will be similar.

(And also, please ignore all the spaces and lines and italics and caps lock and everything, I like my work to have a nice visual presentation, so a few things might look weird.)

Once again, thank you and I hope you enjoy~!

(Disclaimer: Kyoukai no Kanata, its characters, and plot all belong to Nagomu Torii, anime adaption to Kyoto Animation.)


	2. How to Kill an Immortal, Part I

I open the door to the Literary Club room and thumped down painfully in my seat. _Geez, why won't she give up? At this rate I might actually die._ I rubbed the spot over my heart a little, and winced.

"Having a good day, I see."

I glance up to meet Mitsuki. "It's been wonderful, thank you very much" I deadpan. "What about you?"

"It went downhill the moment I saw you." She didn't even look up.

...Cold as usual, I see.

I sigh and rub my forehead. "Thanks. What do you've got today?"

She thumped a huge stack of books in front of me. "Screening. Get to it, we've got 149 books to get through by the end of the month, and knowing the way you work, I'll probably do 148."

She turned back to the one she was reading.

I give her the look before shrugging it off and heading to the closet to get a lamp. She was going to go blind in this shady room.

"...A dismembered body, huh?" She signals me to review the story she was reading. I put down the lamp and scan the page. I shook my head. Just another piece of crap. I go back to untangling the lamp wire.

"It's not like you'll draw the readers in if you simply make all the murders grotesque…"

She tucks a few strands of hair out of her face and sits up. "Then, what type of mystery should I go for?"

I think about it. A mystery, huh…"I think the readers are most interested in the character's actions and logic behind them." I conclude.

I untangle the lamp and set it down next to Mitsuki. "I hate things like 'Oh, I thought it'd be cool to dismember him!' above all else." I roll my eyes and turn on the light. "This okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine." She was already looking to the next story. I sighed in exasperation, and thumped back down in my seat. _Ow._ I wince a little as I turn to the stack of books at my side. Casually, I flip through one. _Nope, nope, nope, nope and n-_ "Akihito." Mitsuki's voice cuts me out of my stupor. "Your senpai in the Literary Club put their hearts and souls in those scraps of paper. It's rude to toy with them like that."

_Scraps of paper?_ "I don't sense a shred of respect in the expression you just used," I mutter.

"Can you blame me?" She yawned and stretched. "You went up to our advisor and said, _'We'll hit volume 150 with our next anthology.'_" She continues. "Considering the current state of our club, you should have anticipated she was going to have you make this commemorative issue; a compilation of our best works." She says this calmly, like it had nothing to do with her.

_What "best works?" None of them are any good at all…_ "Mitsuki, you're the one who told me to go talk to her!" I shoot her a half-hearted glare.

She ignores me and picks up the next book. "How about this! It's a mystery that has a weak motive and a clumsy scientific investigation with a twist."

That's all I'll ever need to know. I sigh. "If you remember that, you can toss it out…"

She tries the next one. "It's a fairy tale, but it was rather interesting."

"The title?"

"I Took Off My Red Riding Hood." She read out.

I mentally thought of Red Riding Hood without her, well, red riding hood. I facepalmed. "Then I won't know who it is!" Dang, is it just me or is the Literary Club really going do-

I heard a faint rustling outside the door and me and Mitsuki both freeze and look at each other.

"Kuriyama Mirai?" she deduced.

Here we go again. I sigh. "Probably…" I start to head out.

Mitsuki slumps a bit. "Are you trying to dump the screening process onto me?" She accuses.

"I'll be back in just a second." I call back.

* * *

The minute I step out-no not even. I immediately spot her crouching rather uselessly behind a table the minute I open the door. I glance at her, sigh, then pretend I didn't see her and walk ahead. Through the corner of my eye, I see her cautiously stand up and follow. "Ah!" I say.

She lets out a little squeak and dashed to the nearest door...which also happened to be a closet. Throwing the door wide open, she took quite a beating as everything came tumbling down, ending with a lovely yellow soap container whomping her on the head and her landing with a Fphoompf! on her butt.

"O-owowww…" She looks at the mess she created, glasses askew, and brushes a broom off her."

I continue to feign ignorance. "Oh, hey, Kuriyama-san, whatever are you doing in a place like this?"

She looks up at me, then looks away, biting her thumb. "Oh!" she mumbled. She stares at the adjacent wall and pushes her glasses up before returning to look at me again. "It's quite the coincidence, isn't it?" Her eyes are wide, hoping I would buy into it.

Well…I smile wryly at her. "Seriously...There is no way coincidences like this occur!" I lean in, my voice growing louder and louder.

She drops the act, glaring at me. "How unpleasant…" She mutters.

I stop for a minute to contemplate how nice it was when her glasses hung crookedly from her nose and sigh. "What were you doing?"

"Uu." She turns to the side and starts wiping her glasses. "Well…" I can practically see the gears in her head working furiously for a solution.

I stand up straight. "You won't find a good excuse by wiping your glasses."

She stands up and waves her arms frantically, still trying to come up with an answer. "I-I-I-I wasn't trying to come up with an excuse!" She stuttered, looking a bit agitated.

"But you're clearly shaken." I shoot back.

She quickly puts her glasses back on and, still stuttering, say "O-O-Only because you had to make that weird accusation, Senpai!"

I shake my head a little, sighing again. "Don't you think it's about time you gave up?"

_"...As I've already told you, I'm immortal. No matter how many times you stab me or give me fatal wounds, you can't kill me."_ My voice lowers a little.

When I turn back to look at her, she's wiping her glasses again. "W-W-What are you talking about?" Her stuttering worsened, and this time, she really doesn't look at me at all.

"You suck at playing dumb!" I take a step toward her and point to my aching heart. "Do you realize how many times you've stabbed me in the past week, Kuriyama-san?"

She look down and starts counting on her fingers. "One...Two...Six?"

"It takes two hands?!" And in just one week too…

"It's your fault, Senpai!" She glares at me through her glasses. "I've never heard of someone possessed by a youmu who can take countless fatal blows!"

Geez, will I ever get through her head?! "I already told you!" I take a deep breath and explain again. _"I'm not possessed by a youmu. I'm a half-youmu."_ I cross my arms and stand up a little straighter. _"I'm a rare entity, born between a human and a youmu."_

She looks down._ "Then does it really matter?"_

What? "How do you figure?"

_"Nothing changes, no matter how many times I stab you."_

"Now see here! I'm not some small-fry character in a videogame!" Yep, I'm just gonna respawn again…

"At any rate, as long as I am a Spirit World Warrior and you are a youmu, there is nothing wrong with what I'm doing." She bows and pushed her glasses up. "Goodbye." She moves to walk away and promptly trips on a broom. "Ua-Ow!" She lands with a loud thump! onto the ground. "Owowow…"

...well I can't just very well leave her there, can I? I help her up and leave her to cleaning up the mess she made.

* * *

AN: _ITALICS, ITALICS EVERYWHERE._ Huehuehu. Anyways, new chapter up guys! Also, please make sure to check past chapters, as I always like to update them and post new things. I believe that is all. Have a good one!

(Disclaimer: Kyoukai no Kanata, its characters, and plot all belong to Nagomu Torii, anime adaption to Kyoto Animation.)


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